Motor vehicles have sophisticated control systems for controlling the vehicles' engines. A typical control system includes an engine control unit (ECU) and a number of sensors communicatively coupled to the ECU which provide sensed data thereto. The ECU then uses the sensed data in executing control algorithms for controlling components of the vehicle engine. The control algorithms are in the form of software programs stored in ECU memory.
Calculations performed by some existing ECUs include a calculation of a value from which the research octane number (RON) of the fuel used by the vehicle can be inferred. The RON is a standard measure of the performance of an engine fuel. The higher the octane number, the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating (igniting). In broad terms, fuels with a higher octane rating are used in high performance gasoline engines that require higher compression ratios. In contrast, fuels with lower octane numbers (but higher cetane numbers) are better for diesel engines, because diesel engines (also referred to as compression-ignition engines) do not compress the fuel, but rather compress only air and then inject fuel into the air which was heated by compression. The calculation of the RON for the vehicle's fuel has been used by the vehicle's ECU in controlling the vehicle engine.
Another calculation performed by some existing ECUs is a calculation from which the quality of the vehicle fuel can be inferred. Like the calculation of RON, the calculation of fuel quality has been used in some ECUs to control the operation of the vehicle engine.
Motor vehicles are further known to include telematics devices which are used to wirelessly communicate with remote devices and satellites to perform, among other things, global positioning satellite (GPS) location functionality.